Is This Insanity?

A man with no direction in life and a secret longing for death, Noel Lynch describes his feelings of utter inadequacy and dissatisfaction with everything as he recounts the most memorable moments of his short and lonely existence. A deconstruction and satire of depression-filled coming-of-age stories, it also acts as a true and honest look into the mind of an anxious, depressed young man who blames others for his own misery
View table of contents...

Chapters:

I have wondered for a long time what being intelligent really
meant. Did it mean knowing all there was to know about the world?
But that's impossible, isn't it? No human being can know
everything there is to know. If you believe that, then you are
seriously delusional. Does being intelligent simply mean the
opposite of being ignorant? Is it being well versed in language
and literature? Or perhaps it's being a scientist or a
mathematician. I'm not entirely sure. Whenever I ask others, they
simply look at me as if I have several heads and shrug. Usually,
I merely ignore their vague and uninformative responses, but as
of late I am becoming increasingly agitated at their cryptic
answers. How hard is it to tabulate a decent opinion on
intelligence? I would find my dictionary and look into it myself,
but I have become rather busy as of late and taking the time out
of my day to search for it would be nothing more than a waste.

Why am I so hung up on intelligence? Because numerous times have
I been told that I lack the intelligence of my elder relatives.
They were model students, the apex of perfection, while I am
nothing more than a disgustingly average waste of human filth. I
cannot count the times my authority figures have sneered at me in
utter contempt, thinking about how useless I am. Thinking about
how little I've contributed to society. What is society though?
Is it a collective, comprised of the unconscious minds of all
human beings? Or is the word merely a substitute for that of the
individual speaking about it? When somebody tells me that I am
out of touch with society, do they mean the entire world, or them
specifically? I am never truly able to tell. It disconcerts me,
to be completely honest. Knowledge is something someone gains,
not something that you're born with. As if comparing me to my
predecessors is an accurate way of gauging my academic abilities.
I suppose I understand their comparisons, though. While it
irritates me to no end, I can relate. It's one of the few human
quirks I find myself empathizing with. About now, the kind
individuals reading this are probably deeply confused as to what
my point is. To be completely honest, I can't give you any
clarification on that, for even I do not seem to know where I am
taking this. Living is growing increasingly stressful, and I find
it more difficult to keep my happy façade glued onto my face at
all times. Because of this, I have decided to keep a record of my
more interesting life moments in hope that a single person will
be able to see the horrors of humanity as I have. In essence,
there's no point to anything. This has no point, my life has no
point, and neither does yours. Yes, that's right reader. You
serve no purpose to the universe. Whether you live or die makes
little difference. Do you understand what this means? It means
that you have no reason to keep living. Why don't you just end
your pathetic existence already and forgo this horrendously
sadistic world? Is it because you're scared? My friend, you
should not be afraid of death. Rather, you should be afraid of
living.

The tale of my descent begins when I was a child. During my
elementary school years, I suffered a rather chronic case of
entitlement issues. What are entitlement issues? Well, in
layman's terms, it's essentially the issue plaguing children, and
even teenagers in this day and age. You see, children and
teenagers believe themselves to be entitled to the best food, the
most entertaining entertainment and comfortable living conditions
without having to put in an ounce of effort. They instead allow
their poor, miserable parents, whose marriage is most likely
failing at this point, to do all the work for them and pay for
their menial and benign materials. Entitled children like these
are a scourge, an awful result of parents' apathy towards their
spawn. Parents are unhappy and uncaring, only concerned with the
fact that they no longer have intercourse every night with their
gradually decaying spouses. They realize that they are doomed to
forty more years of celibacy unless they muster the courage to
find an attractive younger member of the opposite sex and proceed
to burrow their sorrows into them, even at the risk of being
caught by their significant other. Those who do usually don't
care if they're caught. Why don't they care? Because they have
nothing to lose. Their bland lives have no meaning to them. They
simply want to return to the days of youthfulness and parties and
illicit narcotics.

I, myself, was an entitled brat in grade school, believing that I
was deserving of every little thing and everybody's attention. At
this point, the concept of hate was still a foreign idea to me. I
never held a grudge towards anybody, until the day I met a tall
fellow named Michael. A month or so older than I was, the boy was
unnaturally tall, so much so that the other students nicknamed
him the Iron Giant. Michael was strange, snotty and awkward. He
had a peculiar fascination with Legos, cars and cellular phones,
and he enjoyed whining about everything that bothered him. If
another child so much as gave him a humorous look, Michael would
begin shedding crocodile tears and reach out to his
over-protective mother. He clung to her as if she were his life
support, and letting go meant absolute death. I'm sure most of us
were waiting for her to pull out her breast for him to suckle on,
due to how much he resembled a baby, completely reliant on the
female who birthed him. His hair was curly and black, and he
always carried around his lunchbox. Sometimes he would swing it
around at the girls on the playground and hit them, resulting in
several complaints. He didn't care though. He just laughed
giddily and skipped away. Fashionably, he was not. Striped button
down shirts seemed to be his distinct "style". His voice was
unbearably high and nasally, to the point where if you were given
an audio recording of him without any context, you'd most likely
assume him to be a female.

During the fourth grade, I fancied a young girl by the name of
Jessica. I recall her being relatively pretty in comparison to
the rest of the girls in my grade, but I do not remember anything
distinctly appealing about her personality. There most likely
wasn't anything appealing about her, in actuality. Kids tend not
to care too deeply about substance anyway. Michael discovered my
attraction for little Jessica after I had unthinkingly told him
about it. I foolishly trusted him with this confidential
information and spilled it out. He responded with, "Really?
Jessica, huh?" and giggled a bit. "Ooooh, that's juicy!" In
retrospect, telling him really wasn't my greatest decision.

Afterwards, Michael galloped through the school to spread the
word. It wasn't long before every single person in the fourth
grade knew of my childish lusting for Jessica, and I was
understandably angry. My rage caused me to furiously confront
Michael in the classroom at the end of the school day, where I
berated him for his immature gossip.

"Why did ya go around tellin everybody for? That was a secret!"

He giggled. "Sorry! It was just too funny!"

"Funny?" I was getting sick of his shit. "If you think this is
funny, then you're messed up, Michael!"

"Maybe you should've picked a prettier girl then!" I can still
see that stupid grin etched onto his face.

I don't recall much of what happened after he said that. What I
do remember is him on the floor a few seconds later, holding his
chest in anguish and crying profusely. He convulsed furiously on
the ground, yelling out for his mother, begging for someone to
help him up. Before I knew it, everyone in the classroom was
staring at me as if I had murdered him. I don't think it was out
of anger, though, as much as it was surprise. Surprise that a
short creature such as myself brought the Iron Giant to the
floor, holding onto his striped shirt, snot pouring out his nose
and tears dripping down his face. It felt surprisingly
refreshing, seeing him so pained like he was. That euphoric
feeling didn't last for long, however, as the teacher was
returning to the room. I realized how awful this scene looked,
and cleverly began crying as well, apologizing to Michael
frantically. My apologies were, obviously, empty and superficial,
but the teacher didn't know that. He saw that Michael was fine
and not dying, and then scolded me for a bit. However, my
convincing fake apology and tears seemed to diminish his anger,
and he relented, giving me a small warning and telling me not to
hurt Michael again. I continued to let the tears flow and nodded
half-heartily, begging him and Michael for forgiveness.

When I went home after school that day, Michael and his mother
paid me a surprise visit. His mother, Janet, angrily chewed out
my mother for her considerable lack of decent parenting skills. I
do not wish to argue with Janet, as my mother did indeed lack the
abilities with which to parent, however it was completely
unnecessary for her to drive to my house in an attempt to guilt
trip me. Especially as I did not feel an ounce of guilt.

Speaking of mothers, why don't we talk about mine? My mother was
a strange, disturbed enigma. She was never happy with anything,
always miserably crying in her room or relentlessly badgering me
and my siblings for various, menial things. Whenever we didn't
comply with her requests, or if we disobeyed, instead of scolding
us bitterly as a normal mother would, she would burst into
furious tears and shout at the top her lungs that she wished she
had aborted us. After she had her temper tantrum, she would reach
into the knife drawer and pull out a long jackknife, point it at
her throat and threaten to kill herself if we didn't stop acting
like brats. Truth be told, it was a rather traumatic experience.
After it happened, I didn't think much of it. For years now I
repressed the memories of her breaking down, holding the knife at
her throat begging to die, saying that it would be all our faults
if she committed the act. We were so terribly frightened of her.
She must have been frightened of herself too. Eventually, she
seemingly succeeded with her attempts to self-terminate as she
was found dead one evening in her secluded bedroom. One of my
brothers found the body and screamed promptly. Siblings. Let us
talk about those.

I had several siblings, all of which I can safely say were as
deranged as my mother was. Being the youngest of three children
you have a lot to live up to, even the ones who were less
intelligent and successful than the others. My slightly older
brother, Robert, always had a gleeful grin on his face. His teeth
were wildly crooked and he wore an awful curly afro-like
hairstyle, and his stench wasn't too attractive. However, he was
one of the most laid-back, kindest souls I have ever, and will
ever encounter. He always knew what to say and do to make the
most depressed human being laugh. His laugh, by the way, was loud
and booming and wonderful. It made me forget about all the
terrible things that surrounded me. The oldest brother, Jon, was
a different story. Jon was cold and intelligent, popular yet
distant. Jon was a terrifyingly disturbing man, who, on the
outside, appeared nothing more than a strange looking extroverted
teenager. But he was much more than that. Jon took pleasure in
skinning small animals and torturing them before decapitating
them and stringing their heads up along the house. As a wee
little boy, he did horrible things to little woodland creatures.
He stabbed them, crushed their skulls, removed their internal
organs, dismembered them and wore their appendages as souvenirs.
I was one of the few to see Jon at his worst, always secretly
watching him commit gruesome acts of violence on these innocent
little critters. He was also a bit of a narcissist, continuously
flaunting his vast intellectual knowledge about arbitrary things
that nobody really needed to concern themselves with, but he
prided himself in his well-read nature. Many a people fell for
his rouse, and he became the highest scoring kid in his class.
Because of this, I had a big reputation to live up to, and
everyone enjoyed comparing me to him. He was better than me at
everything. Sports, school…